Policy leaders: Union will have to live with right-to-work

A leader of a major Michigan business group said at a Mt. Pleasant debate that right-to-work laws are neither a union killer nor a silver bullet for business.

“I believe that labor unions will have to adjust,” said Rich Studley, the president and CEO of the Michigan State Chamber of Commerce. “It’s about the freedom to choose and doesn’t affect collective bargaining.”

The Griffin Policy Forum Monday at Central Michigan University on “The Future of Labor Unions in Michigan” had a full audience plus some in the Park Library Auditorium while four speakers, each representing a different side of the spectrum, debated the subject.

“This is just a fancy disguise for union busting,” charged David Hecker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers of Michigan. Hecker said that a union is about the members themselves, not the organization.

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Right to work is a law that prohibits unions from creating a union security agreement, which would make workers at certain jobs pay union fees even if they didn’t belong to the union. Right to work, according to its opponents, is basically a right-to-not-support-a-union law.

“This is a political issue; it’s not an employment issue,” said former Lt. Gov. John D. Cherry. “It strikes me as a continual fight over who’s going to control the political agenda.”

Cherry was the state’s No. 2 elected official from 2003 to 2011 during the Democratic Granholm administration.

“I believe it is too soon to tell what employee-employer relations will be like,” said Vincent Vernuccio, the director of labor policy at the Midland-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank that strongly supported right-to-work. He said that right to work just went into affect and will take some time to adjust to the new law.

Studley said the direction of the labor movement is up to the labor movement.

“The future of the labor movement will depend on the reaction of labor leaders,” Studley said.

The teachers union leader said unions were about much more than employer-employee relationships.

“Unions have been major in civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights, and the environment,” Hecker said. “It’s a much higher difference for women and minorities when unions are involved with equality.”

The business group’s Studley said that he thinks Michigan should invest more in higher education, and less in corrections and welfare.

All sides agreed that Michigan has to keep moving forward.

“Our direction is forward,” Cherry said, “and Michigan will be a better place 20 years from now, despite the problems.”